The Girl Can't Help It

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article or section reads like a review and may need a cleanup.
Please help improve this article to make it neutral in tone and meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
The Girl Can't Help It

original movie poster
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Produced by Frank Tashlin
Written by Frank Tashlin
Herbert Baker
Starring Tom Ewell
Jayne Mansfield
Edmond O'Brien
Music by Bobby Troup
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date(s) December 1, 1956
Running time 99 min.
Country United States
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Girl Can't Help It is a 1956 comedy/musical film, starring Jayne Mansfield, Tom Ewell, and Edmond O'Brien. It was produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, with a screenplay written by Frank Tashlin and Herbert Baker from an uncredited novel Do Re Me by Garson Kanin.

The original music score, including the title song by Little Richard, was by Bobby Troup, with an additional credit to Ray Anthony for the tune "Big Band Boogie". It was shot in DeLuxe Color, filmed in CinemaScope, and runs 99 minutes.

Contents

[edit] Plot

A slot-machine mobster, Marty "Fats" Murdock (O'Brien) wants his blonde girlfriend, Jerri Jordan (Mansfield), to be a singing star, despite the fact that she seems to have no talent. In order to achieve this aim, he hires a press agent, Tom Miller (Ewell), to promote her career. He chooses Miller, because of his past success with the career of singer Julie London (a fiction of the script) and the fact that he never makes sexual advances towards his female clients.

Miller reluctantly takes on the job and sets to work by showing her off around numerous night spots and rehearsal rooms in order that she may be seen by those that matter in show business. He merely requires her to move around looking beautiful whilst always dressed in the latest haute-couture fashions.

Miller's machinations arouse interest in Jerri and soon offers of contracts follow. A distraught Miller, terrified of Murdock, twists and turns and uses various ruses to keep him at bay. On top of this, there are the usual misunderstandings, when Mousie, (Henry Jones), an associate of the ever jealous Murdock, misleadingly splices a recording of a wiretap between Miller and Jordan to make it seem as if the two have a business — rather than a romantic — connection.

Finally, it is discovered that Jerri does have talent, which appears to solve Miller's problems. That is, until Jerri reveals that she is only interested in home and motherhood and that he is the real object of her affection. There is, of course, a happy ending for everyone.

[edit] Analysis, criticism, reception

 This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.
You can assist by editing it now. A how-to guide is available. (June 2007)

Tom Ewell performs as Miller, strikingly similar to his role in The Seven Year Itch when he played opposite Marilyn Monroe. The protagonist of the story, Miller must struggle with temptation while attempting to keep to his job.

Edmond O'Brien plays a loud, intimidating Murdock, but his tongue-in-cheek performance reveals a sense of comedy through his witty asides. For example, when Murdock states, "et cetera, et cetera, et cetera", he parodies the same line used by Yul Brynner in the 1956 film The King and I.

Jayne Mansfield keeps her portrayal of Jerri simple. She utters a series of simple lines and stands or moves around looking beautiful. Her speech about a woman's place being in the home may sound old fashioned, but reflected the stereotypical place of women during the time. Tashlin may have kept her role deliberately simple in order not to invite unfair comparisons with Marilyn Monroe, for whom the role may have originally been written. Mansfield's twee gasp was parodied shortly thereafter by the actress herself in the 1957 comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?.

Bill Reed and David Ehrenstein said in Rock on Film (Delilah Books, 1981), "Jayne Mansfield is a succulent A-Bomb just waiting to explode in this satire of record industry hucksterism. And the look of the film is just right! Cinemascope, stereophonic sound and Technicolor you can eat with a spoon,"

Appearing at the night spots Miller and Jerri visit is a line-up of some of the golden greats of rock & roll, including Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Platters, Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps, and acrobatic pioneer rockers The Treniers, as well as lesser-known artists, such as Eddie Fontaine and The Chuckles, who obtained brief bursts of popularity in 1956 but soon faded. There are even young hopefuls like Teddy Randazzo, who emerged within the rock and roll, despite never attaining status as major stars.

The film also features auburn-haired, husky-voiced, sultry singer Julie London. She appears in Miller's apartment as a haunting, spirit of a love past who follows him from room to room, constantly changing evening dresses and hair styles and singing her Top Ten hit of that year, "Cry Me a River."

Another iconic scene introduces the film's theme song: Jerri walks along the pavement like a fashion model on the catwalk, wearing a tight-fitting, black two-piece costume with matching broad-brimmed hat, gloves, shoes and handbag. All around men are ogling her, the ice on a delivery truck melts and the bottle of milk in a milkman's hand boils as she passes, whilst an unseen Little Richard is belting out, "The Girl Can't Help It" as various special effects match the lyrics, which tell of her effects on all objects: "the menfolk get engrossed...the bread slice turns to toast...the beefsteak become well done...she makes grandpa feel like twenty-one...."

The Girl Can't Help It received critical praise at the time and was better regarded than other rock and roll films of the period such as Rock Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Rock, which were really promotional vehicles for Bill Haley & His Comets, and Rock, Rock, Rock which simply collected a bunch of performances around a slight storyline.

These films were considered to have been thrown together to cash in on the rock and roll craze. The Girl Can't Help It was considered to have a stronger storyline than these other films, to feature better known actors and to have the advantage of being shot in color. Although predated by Rock Around the Clock, The Girl Can't Help It is often considered to be the first rock and roll film to be given the same sort of serious treatment as other major musicals of the day.

The Girl Can't Help It additionally poked fun at rock and roll, in ways that other films had not.

In some scenes, the stockily built Edmond O'Brien wore a plaid dinner jacket of the type favored at the time by the stockily built Bill Haley and, as a final twist, at the end of the film his character Murdock became a rock and roll singer, despite a lack of apparent talent. His voice was atrocious and his hit record, "Rock Around the Rock Pile," was really an impersonation of what an adult brought up in the Swing Era thought rock and roll sounded like.

The film's satire also emerges as Miller complains to Murdock, over the telephone, that he cannot get Jerri a spot on television as she has no talent. Murdock screams at him to watch the television since, if someone can make a noise like the featured act and get on TV, there should be no problem in getting a TV spot for Jerri. Miller switches on the TV to witness a very young Eddie Cochran singing "Twenty Flight Rock."

The Girl Can't Help It was a box office success.

[edit] Songs performed in the movie

  1. "The Girl Can't Help It" - Little Richard
  2. "Tempo's Tempo" - Nino Tempo
  3. "My Idea of Love" - Johnny Olenn
  4. "I Ain't Gonna Cry No More" - Johnny Olenn
  5. "Ready Teddy" - Little Richard
  6. "She's Got It" - Little Richard
  7. "Cool It Baby" - Eddie Fontaine
  8. "Cinnamon Sinner" - Teddy Randazzo and the Three Chuckles
  9. "Spread the Word" - Abbey Lincoln
  10. "Cry Me a River" - Julie London
  11. "Be-Bop-A-Lula" - Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps
  12. "Twenty Flight Rock" - Eddie Cochran
  13. "Rock Around the Rockpile" - Ray Anthony Orchestra
  14. "Rocking Is Our Business" - The Treniers
  15. "Blue Monday" - Fats Domino
  16. "You'll Never, Never Know" - The Platters
  17. "Every Time You Kiss Me" - Unknown, lip-synched by Jayne Mansfield

[edit] Cast

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • Producers wanted Elvis Presley to perform in the movie, but 'Col. Tom Parker' demanded too much money for Elvis to sing one song.
  • The wedding dress that Jayne Mansfield wears was loaned to her to use for her real-life marriage to Mickey Hargitay in 1958.
  • In the nightclub, when Jayne Mansfield is ready to go on stage, there is a chorus girl in the background, Abbey Lincoln, who is wearing a costume that was previously worn by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). The red dress appears in the dining room scene of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
  • Some reference sources and websites erroneously suggest that Bill Haley & His Comets appear in this film. They do not.
  • Production began on the film in mid-September 1956 just as Jayne Mansfield was finishing up her Broadway triumph in the play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? The film was made just in time to be released for the Christmas season in 1956.
  • This was the first of two comedies that Frank Tashlin wrote and directed which starred Jayne Mansfield. Tashlin once said, "There's nothing in the world to me that's funnier than big breasts."

[edit] External links